Am I the only one that feels like web development is a tug of war? Nearly project I’ve worked on seems to have:
the “suits”, who have a vision for expanding the business but couldn’t give a flying hoot about the quality of their code
developers, who often care deeply about the code but don’t give a rotten pizza about the business concept
designers, who care about making things pretty and fuck everyone else
Is anyone else sick of designers who demand pixel-perfect implementation, even if it doubles website load time? Of apathetic developers who need hand-holding? Of conscientious developers insisting on Cisco-grade infrastructure for a website selling pickles? Of management requesting a castle when you’re halfway done building them a bridge?
On the flip side, how many entrepreneurs out there feel like you’re throwing money away on inefficient development, because you don’t know what to look for? How many of you developers have a brilliant idea, but wish you knew more about branding and marketing?
Methinks the web has got a serious communication problem to solve.
Enter [Birth of a Site]. This brand-spanking-new project aims to educate the public about web development best practices in a holistic way, encompassing technology, marketing and design. And we are going to do it /through the development of the site itself/. If you visit the site now, it’s just a landing page with an email address. Accordingly, the first articles will be about picking a domain name, setting up email, picking the hosting you need and getting started with version control. Then, stay tuned for interviews with industry experts as we go through the steps of a smartly-planned web development project:
Choosing a name – should reflect what you do, with the additional challenge of being a catchy and available domain name
Using the name – filing the legal paperwork, setting up email and a simple landing page
Fleshing out the brand – what exactly do we offer, and how will we market it?
Agility – how do we prioritize what needs to be built immediately, and plan for scaling up in the future?
Gathering content for the website – how can we communicate our message?
Designing the website – how can we use design to present the content?
Building the website – how can we best use technology to meet our needs? How can we pick developers who will build a good product? Should we build one to “throw away” before we build a final, solid version?
Promoting the website – how can we get the right people to visit our website?
Did I mention we plan on trying some hotshot new technology (well hello there, NoSQL), and open-source anything we build in the process? Github, here we come!
If you’re an expert in any of the topics above, please contact me at info at the birth of a site domain – I want to interview you! As for the rest of you, see you over at [Birth of a Site].
The Problem with Web Development…
Am I the only one who feels like web development is a tug of war? Nearly every project I’ve worked on seems to have:
- the “suits”, who have a vision for expanding the business but couldn’t give a flying hoot about the quality of their code
- developers, who often care deeply about the code but don’t give a rotten pizza about the business concept
- creatives, who care about making things pretty because screw everyone else
Methinks the web has got a serious communication problem to solve.
The Solution: Openness and Education
Enter Birth of a Site. This new project aims to educate the public about web development best practices in a holistic way, encompassing technology, marketing and design. And we are going to do it through the development of the site itself. The vision is to document every step of developing this static landing page into a full-fledged content portal, full of interviews with industry experts on the process of creating a quality website, from choosing a catchy name to hiring reliable developers to marketing your product. How meta is that?
We plan on trying some hotshot new technology (well hello there, NoSQL; HTML5, how you doin’?). And of course, the project and anything we build in the process will be open-source. The evolving source code will be posted to Github.
If you work with the web, we want to hear from you.
If you’re an expert in the web – be it development, design or marketing – please leave your suggestions in the comments, or contact me to set up an interview.
See you all over at Birth of a Site!